Tag: Tom Atkins

The Fog (1980)

THE FOG (1980) **1/2
Fog has been a critical element in many horror movies and the 1939 Hound of the Baskervilles, The Wolf Man, Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man, and The Return of the Vampire immediately leap to mind as films made definitely better from their use of fog effects to create a foreboding atmosphere.

Edgar Allan Poe died at the age of 40 in 1849 but his writing and his influence live on forever. Is all that we see or seem / But a dream within a dream?

Ghost stories around the campfire have been around longer than The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, and I believe that’s how Washington Irving first heard about Ichabod Crane, Brom Bones, and the Headless Horseman.

John Carpenter directed, co-wrote, and scored the original Halloween in 1978, one of the great transcendent low-budget shockers with a boogeyman killer.

Carpenter’s The Fog, his first horror film after Halloween, combines the title character, a Poe quote before the opening credits, a ghost story around the campfire told by distinguished actor John Houseman, and some grisly murder set pieces that far surpass the relatively tame and nearly entirely bloodless Halloween, but I remain steadily down the middle of the road in my reaction to it.

I want to like it a lot more than I do, believe me, and maybe I will get there next time.

I liked it more during the most recent viewing of the film and I definitely understand why it’s developed a cult following and a much better reputation in recent years.

It does create quite the foreboding atmosphere at times, it bears all the trademarks of a Carpenter film with his penchant for great composition both in the sense of framing and the music present throughout, and I do like the story of this small California town celebrating their centenary with a dark secret about the founding discovered, discussed, and confronted during the film as the dead men return 100 years to the day for their revenge.

Still, all the same, it’s underwhelming.

I believe it’s mainly because I don’t particularly connect to any of the characters and thus, I don’t really care about their fates particularly all that much.

I come the closest to connecting with radio station owner and host Stevie (played by Carpenter’s former wife Adrienne Barbeau) and Father Patrick Malone (Hal Holbrook), but they’re not on the same level as Dr. Loomis and Laurie Strode in Halloween, Kurt Russell’s characters in Escape from New York and The Thing, Keith Gordon’s Arnie Cunningham in Christine, Karen Allen’s and Jeff Bridges’ characters in Starman, and Roddy Piper’s George Nada in They Live, some of Carpenter’s best characters and best films.

While it is comforting to see Carpenter regulars like Barbeau, Jamie Lee Curtis, Tom Atkins, Charles Cyphers, Nancy Kyes, and good old ‘Buck’ Flower, they’ll still all be remembered first for other characters in other Carpenter films.

We simply don’t get enough of any of the main characters.

The Fog lacks a certain something, energy perhaps first and foremost, to really take it over the top and into the stratosphere like Halloween.

All that said, The Fog still has some very good even almost great moments.

I especially like the scene when Father Malone reads four entries from his grandfather’s journal and then delivers the best line of the film, The celebration tonight is a travesty. We’re honoring murderers.

Speaking of a travesty, I watched the 2005 remake in a theater and I have to believe that it’s one of the 10 worst movies I’ve ever watched in a multiplex near you.

Halloween III: Season of the Witch (1982)

HALLOWEEN III

HALLOWEEN III: SEASON OF THE WITCH (1982) One star

The late critic Roger Ebert (1942-2013) took a lot of heat from readers for his review of HALLOWEEN III, mainly because his review contained glaring factual errors, including the biggie that Michael Myers was in HALLOWEEN III. Even those who agree with his basic finding that HALLOWEEN III sucks wish that Ebert had written a better review.

Recently, a Facebook post on a cult and exploitation film group referenced Ebert’s HALLOWEEN III review from one of his video companion books as just one more reason why the critic sucked. Going back nearly five years ago, the “Halloween III: Season of the Witch Appreciation” group posted his entire review. Would it be too much to say get over it? I mean, I hope Ebert never looked back and moved on past HALLOWEEN III.

Here’s the part, though, referencing Myers: “It begins at the end of HALLOWEEN II, when the monster was burned up in the hospital parking lot, but it’s not still another retread of the invincible monster. In fact, the monster is forgotten, except for a lab technician who spends the whole movie sifting through his ashes.”

Here’s what I find most fascinating: There’s a “Halloween III: Season of the Witch Appreciation” group. Certain fans of the film stick up for it very, very, very intensely and go after those who do not believe in their cult favorite, a phenomenon that also exists with other flicks like, for example, HOWARD THE DUCK. Be careful, very very very careful indeed, when expressing a “negative” opinion these days about somebody’s misunderstood, neglected cult favorite.

As one might gather from the star rating, I think HALLOWEEN III sucks. Yeah, I said it, just like how Rodney Dangerfield said it during CADDYSHACK. (HALLOWEEN III fans believe their movie’s been treated like Dangerfield’s most famous line.)

At just about this moment in time, somebody might be saying that I just don’t understand the conceptual brilliance throughout HALLOWEEN III.

No, believe me, I get HALLOWEEN III, I understand it, hell I even admire it for trying something completely different than being just one more damn assembly line horror movie sequel, I think it fails miserably.

I find HALLOWEEN III to be a drag, a real downer of a movie, redeemed only somewhat by two performances, including one by veteran Irish character actor Dan O’Herlihy as diabolical villain Conal Cochran, the world’s greatest practical joker. Though I enjoyed O’Herlihy more in both THE LAST STARFIGHTER and ROBOCOP, he brings that same ebullient spirit to HALLOWEEN III. He’s just like a James Bond super villain.

Unfortunately, though, I would be hard-pressed to name a main protagonist in any horror movie I like less than Dan Challis in HALLOWEEN III. Maybe somebody from THE AMITYVILLE HORROR series, perhaps. It’s no coincidence that HALLOWEEN III co-writer and director Tommy Lee Wallace also wrote AMITYVILLE II: THE POSSESSION (1982), giving him the distinction of being involved with two of the most unpleasant mainstream horror films I’ve ever seen. Both films come from the Dino DeLaurentiis Corporation. Not sure if there’s an “Amityville II: The Possession Appreciation” group in this great big world.

Challis, getting back on track, he’s played by Tom Atkins. I do like Atkins, especially in the cult favorite NIGHT OF THE CREEPS. He’s traditionally a supporting actor, but I don’t think Atkins proved himself up to the task of being the lead actor. He’s too much of a creep in HALLOWEEN III.

Because of that, HALLOWEEN III features one of the most awkward, most unbelievable, and creepiest love scenes in history between Atkins and Stacey Nelkin.

I do believe Ebert nailed it on Nelkin: “The one saving grace in HALLOWEEN III is Stacey Nelkin, who plays the heroine. She has one of those rich voices that makes you wish she had more to say and in a better role. But watch her, too, in the reaction shots: When she’s not talking, she’s listening. She has a kind of rapt, yet humorous, attention that I thought was really fetching. Too bad she plays her last scene without a head.”

Though enjoying both Nelkin and O’Herlihy (file them under good performances in bad movies), the majority of the movie bludgeons me over the head every few minutes with a gory murder scene involving characters I don’t give a damn about. This is one of those movies where you apply ice to the back of your head after it’s over because it’s been hitting you for 100 minutes.

In a nutshell, we have mostly unpleasant characters in unpleasant situations, topped off by ultra-annoying commercial jingles for Silver Shamrock (I get that it’s the point of these jingles) and plots and scenes recycled wholesale from better movies like INVASION OF THE BODY SNATCHERS (1956 version) and James Bond.

Other than that, how was the play, Mrs. Lincoln?